


Beekeeping for Beginners

by MissMollyBloom



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, eventual Sherlolly, fake death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 15:35:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8451940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissMollyBloom/pseuds/MissMollyBloom
Summary: Molly knew only one thing for certain about Sherlock Holmes’ older brother: Mycroft only ever asked her to do something for Sherlock if it was something he wasn’t able to do himself.“What is it?” She asked, peering into the gloom until the sharp, beak-like nose of Mycroft Holmes came into view.“I need you to die.”Of course, Mycroft's plan doesn't come off without its fair share of complications. Chiefly, what happens when Sherlock finds out he's been lied to not only by his brother, but by the one person who matters most? And will Molly truly be safe in her new life? Or will Moriarty strike back with a vengeance?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this one for the Sherlolly Big Bang last year but life intervened and I was never able to finish it in time. Here's hoping I can now!
> 
> The title is a nod to the Mary Russel story of the same name. The similarities end there!
> 
> Also, I've set myself a challenge in lieu of NaNoWriMo (as well as the fast approaching airdate of season 4) to post a chapter of a WiP or a short fic a day every day for the month of November (wish me luck!!). This is the post for November 2.
> 
> Warning - here be angst!  
> Enjoy!

Molly knew only one thing for certain about Sherlock Holmes’ older brother: Mycroft only ever asked Molly to do something for Sherlock if it was something he himself wasn’t able to do for his brother. It was Mycroft who asked Molly to keep a watchful eye on a fledgling detective when he was newly released from his fourth (and final) stay in rehab. It was Mycroft who arranged Molly’s presence as a comfort for his brother on the event of the apparent “death” of The Woman. It was even Mycroft who had planted in Molly’s head the idea of slapping Sherlock senseless for his lapse into addiction after a near decade of hard fought sobriety. 

Whatever was asked, Molly would always say yes. For Sherlock, it would always be yes.

It was fitting, then, that Mycroft’s latest request would be a mirror of the thing which made Sherlock see her as the one person who mattered most. And ironic that her status in his universe was the very reason Mycroft needed her to play her part.

“I need you to do something for Sherlock, Miss Hooper.” His voice piercing the darkness of the pre-dawn corridor in the depths of Bart’s morgue.

“What is it?” She asked, peering into the gloom until the sharp, beak-like nose of Mycroft Holmes came into view.

“I need you to die.”

Of course she would say yes. With Sherlock it would always be yes. No matter what the consequences.

\---

The phone call came from Mycroft - certainly the last person John Watson expected to hear from on Valentine’s Day, if at all, given their fractured relationship of late. And when Mycroft spoke, in a tone slightly more ominous than his usual enigmatic drone, he said only that there had been an “incident” at Molly Hooper’s apartment, and then hung up. 

Later, John would curse Mycroft for failing to warn him, for thinking it was perfectly ok to send John in without preparing him fully for what he would find. Although, when talking to Mary about it later, he had to admit that in all honesty, despite all he had seen in battle and everything he’d experienced at Sherlock’s side, nothing could have prepared him for what he saw. 

Molly’s flat bore no resemblance to the small orderly one he'd visited handful of times previously. Instead, the lounge was overturned, vase shattered, and glistening on the ground was a large pool of what John dearly hoped wasn't Molly Hooper’s blood. 

Hopes which faded when he saw Sherlock.

Kneeling on the ground, the normally unflappable detective seemed in a trance. Oblivious to the blood which coated his hands, Sherlock was flipping through a small paperback without any acknowledgement of the scene which surrounded him. His lips mouthed the words as he read with the focus of a man obsessed.

“He’s been like that since we got here,” Lestrade informed John, his tone as grave as the scene warranted.

“Sherlock!”

John grabbed Sherlock’s shoulder, shaking it once gently, then with more force when it seemed like nothing would break his fugue.

John crouched down, his face level with Sherlock’s, although the detective’s gaze wouldn’t budge from the blood-marked book in his hands.

“Sherlock, what happened here?” John looked around the room. Clearly Molly wasn’t there anymore. He quickly tried calculating the blood-loss volume based on what he could see. Each calculation was more frayed and less accurate as John soon became aware that the odds of survival after such a trauma were slim.

But not impossible.

Sherlock looked up, and for a moment John thought his friend had returned from whatever hell his mind-palace had concocted to deal with whatever the hell it was he had discovered in Molly Hooper’s flat. But his words soon betrayed him.

“Bees can not only understand the curvature of the earth, but the basic geometric form of the hive is the most efficient shape possible to maintain structural integrity.”  
He paused, and only then did he acknowledge the presence of another person. “It keeps them safe, John. Protects from predators.” 

Sherlock’s lip quivered, his hands shook, and the small book fell to the floor. It was only then John could read the title: Beekeeping for Beginners.

John placed a hand over Sherlock’s, willing his friend to return to reality.

“What happened here, mate?”

“Tragedy,” he replied, reaching for the book, opening it, and continuing to read.

“Tragedy?” John stood up and turned to Lestrade who had been standing behind them the whole time. Both raised their eyebrows as if to say the “no shit, Sherlock,” that they were both thinking.

“Yes. Tragedy,” Sherlock continued, his nose disappearing behind the pages of the book, “It’s a tragedy. In 1945, the USA was home to over 4.5 million bees – and today, only 2 million.” Frustrated, Sherlock threw the book across the room where it landed on Molly’s coffee table with a thud. “Why did they die?”

Usually, a question like that would be a game for Sherlock, a puzzle, but today, amid the gruesome tableaux in Molly Hooper’s flat, it was a plea, a petition, a prayer.

Sherlock stood, a mask of calm crossing his face as he walked to retrieve the book. Without further acknowledgment of John or Lestrade, he returned to his position on the floor  
and continued to read.

John was content to leave Sherlock be for the moment, turning his attention fully to Greg.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked.

“I don’t know a lot more than you do, mate,” Lestrade began. “I got a call from Mycroft. Sherlock was the one who found her.”

“Where is she? What hospital?” John asked.

Lestrade blanched, his face draining of colour. John knew what he was going to say before the words were formed on the Detective inspector’s lips.

“She didn’t make it, mate.” He said, his eyes averted from John’s which watered when reality hit.

His lungs wouldn’t work. Reality hit him like a sucker-punch to the gut. He had a thousand questions, and tried to ask them all at once. “Did you – I mean – were you able to-” John gave up. Words didn’t matter anymore.

Lestrade shook his head. “She was gone before we got here,” he explained, “Mycroft’s men are overseeing the investigation. We’re just securing the scene, protecting the evidence.”

“Protecting Sherlock, too,” John noted. Lestrade nodded. Both men looked over at their friend, their faces wearing matching frowns full of concern.

“The queen – if the queen is struck, the whole hive falls. People think queens are replaceable, but they’re wrong. The hive isn’t as strong, the honey not as pure, not once the queen is gone.”

Lestrade gestured to the book. “Mycroft’s agents said she had it in her hands when Sherlock found her. We’ve tried, but he won’t let us process it.” 

“Let him keep it.” John and Lestrade turned to see Mycroft, his face the epitome of the British stiff-upper-lip in the face of such tragedy.

Mycroft nodded at Lestrade, “Thank you Detective Inspector for assisting my department,” he said with his trademark formality.

“Well, Molly is a friend,” Lestrade caught himself, “was.”

“Jesus,” John exclaimed. Molly was. Not is. How the hell was he going to tell Mary?

Mycroft gestured to the two men in pinstripe suits standing behind him. “My agents inform me they have everything they require. Your people are free to go.”

And with that, Mycroft turned, walked out of the flat and down the hallway.

John was dumbfounded, not only in Mycroft’s coldness about Molly’s murder, but about his callous attitude towards his brother.

John caught up with Mycroft half way down the hallway, calling out to stop him in his tracks. “What about Sherlock?” John pressed. 

Mycroft stopped, not turning. 

“What about him?”

“Don't you think we’d better keep an eye on him?” 

Mycroft turn to meet John’s steel glare, but showed no sign of concern for his brother “Whatever for?”

“Well, Molly was...” John stopped, having no real idea how to describe whatever it was between his friend and the pathologist. Not love -no, Sherlock wasn't capable. Friendship? 

Certainly John had learned that some sort of connection had been formed during the time Molly was the only one who knew he was alive. She was definitely important to the detective. His reaction to the day’s events was enough evidence of that if anything else.

Mycroft looked mildly confused. “Miss Hooper was an asset to his work, but-”

“Cut the bullshit Mycroft, we both know she was more than that. Molly was the only one he trusted to fake his death - besides you.”

“Like I said, John, an asset, but not irreplaceable,” Mycroft paused, considering something, before adding, “not in Sherlock’s view.”

John shook his head. “I refuse to believe that. Not even the woman had him lying in the foetal position and gibbering like a maniac.”

“My brother will be fine. He has work to do,” he said with an enigmatic raise of the eyebrow that hinted at the secrets Mycroft held in his oversized brain. With a twirl of his umbrella against the stained carpet tiled of the hallway, Mycroft took his leave.

“We’ll see about that,” John called after him, and the doctor could swear he saw a slight slump sully the elder Holmes’ impeccable posture.


	2. Chapter 2

 

Mycroft Holmes, tie askew, impeccable suit worn and wrinkled from the day’s events, sat at his oversized desk in the basement of the Diogenes club. Head in hands. Worn and weary.

If there was one thing that Mycroft loved more than a good cup of tea or an afternoon scone with lashings of jam and cream was predictability. Not that he could ever stop the agents of chaos, the Moriartys, Magnussen and Smiths, but when these madmen appeared with their schemes and desires and hearts hell-bent on destroying Mycroft’s beloved England, the elder Holmes brother always prided himself on the ability to take the incoherent thoughts of a mad man, and follow them to their inevitable conclusion.

Lord knows he’d had enough training raising his little brother.

And, of course, it was usually his brother’s messes he found himself tidying up, turning the broken shards into a new and perfected masterpiece.

It was Mycroft who knew that Lazarus would be the only possible outcome once Sherlock joined Moriarty on Bart’s roof. But sometimes it was good for him to let his little brother run away with himself, coming up with eleven other possibilities, even if Mycroft knew that all of Sherlock’s fail-safes were entirely unnecessary.

And Magnusses, as hard as it was for him to accept that the logical ending to the story would see him watching his brother shoot a man in cold blood, he had no other choice in the end but to allow the gruesome display play out to its bitter end.

And when he suggested to Lady Smallwood that a six month exile-turned-suicide mission was the only way to adequately punish Sherlock for his sins, he did so completely aware of Smith’s plan to resurrect Moriarty. He farewelled his brother on the tarmac that day, knowing with absolute certainly that in five minutes he would see him again.

And yet, despite all his planning, all his most recent preparations to thwart the plans of the latest madman with an appetite for the destruction of England, and possibly half of Europe, there was one thing he never saw coming, one thing that, had he been able to see, he never would have asked Molly Hooper to make the sacrifice she did.

John Watson had claimed that there was for Sherlock one woman who predominated her entire sex. He was right, of course, but also spectacularly wrong, because the identity of the one woman who mattered most to Sherlock was the one person everyone else thought didn’t matter to Sherlock at all.

Even Mycroft had been blind to it. That is, until that afternoon, when he arrived in Miss Hooper’s flat, and found Sherlock reacting not as a detective who had just lost a colleague, or a man who had lost a friend, but as someone who had lost a piece of their very soul – and with it, it seemed, the mind of the great detective was on that afternoon, in that flat, overthrown.

Even in the depths of a heroin binge, or in the midst of his post-university depression, Mycroft had never seen his brother so lost, so vacant.

It was then that Mycroft realised that the best laid plans of mice and men, and the British government, would have to change. And quickly.

Mycroft looked up from his desk, into the waiting and patient eyes of his assistant Anthea.

“Change of plans?” She asked.

She always knew what he was thinking.

 

* * *

 

John climbed the stairs up to 221B, hesitating between each step. He had no idea what would await him once he got to the top, but he feared it wouldn’t be good.

Sherlock hadn’t answered his calls or texts for the last three days.

Mycroft was no help. His answers were always brief, perfunctory, revealing nothing.

Lestrade had left voicemails updating Sherlock on the progress of the investigation, but hadn’t had his messages returned.

Mrs Hudson said Sherlock wouldn’t let her in, and hadn’t touched any of the food she’d dutifully left at the door for him.

So it came down to John.

It was John who had been the last person to see Sherlock two weeks ago.

After his confrontation with Mycroft in the hallway, John headed back into Molly’s flat to find Sherlock exactly where he had left him, his nose still buried in the book about bees. It was only then John noticed a small detail he’d overlooked in his shock at the state of the apartment, and his concern for his friend.

A large bouquet of bright red roses lay scattered on the ground.

It was Valentine’s Day. Sherlock was in Molly’s apartment. Was he there for another reason than to visit his not-so secret bolt hole?

John was aware of the rumours, the gossip around Bart’s that Molly’s involvement in Sherlock’s “death” was more than merely providing a lookalike corpse, but he had never given the rumours any credit. But then there was Molly’s reaction the fateful morning of Sherlock’s drug test. There was a fury in Molly that John had never seen before, a passion which led her to slap him not one, not two, but three times.

Mere acquaintances didn’t react like that.

And not to mention the fact Molly’s engagement to that Sherlock-lookalike Tom had ended.

But it wasn’t the time for John to dwell on gossip and speculate based on rumour. Not when Sherlock was still staring wide-eyed at the words on the page of the book Molly clung in her hands when Sherlock had found her blood-soaked body.

John walked over to his friend and placed a firm hand on his shoulder.

“Sherlock,” John said in a loud, calm tone, “We have to go, mate.”

The muttering lips of the detective stilled. He turned and faced his friend. “Go where, John?” he asked, in complete confusion.

It was a good question. But honestly, there was only one place Sherlock could go. “You need to leave here. Go back to Baker Street.”

As if speaking the name of Sherlock’s home was the magic incantation to awake the detective from his dissociative state, Sherlock turned to Watson and said, “Yes,” with the same excitement he did whenever he’d solved a mystery.

He stood, brushing off his shirt and striding over to the coat hook where his trademark Belstaff hung.

“Back to Baker Street, John,” he said, his voice almost impatient at his friend who was shocked at the detective’s seemingly-miraculous recovery.

And so John had hope that Sherlock would recover, that despite the shock and trauma of whatever it was he had found in Molly’s apartment, he would be able to channel his grief into something productive, some way to honour Molly’s memory.

But John couldn’t have been more wrong.

The first hint came when they shared a cab back to Baker Street. John was used to Sherlock’s silence during a case. He was also used to his seemingly non-sequitur exclamations. But there was something about the way he spoke – quiet, subdued, - and the content – illogical and improbable – that seemed entirely un-Sherlockian.

“She was holding this book, John,” Sherlock said, and his tone contained something John had never heard in his friend’s voice before – sentiment.

What on earth had gone on between Sherlock and Molly?

“She’s smart, John, smarter than people would think. Topped her class at King’s College – did you know that? No, of course not. She’d never let on. That’s her. Modest.” John was sure he’d seen the detective's eyes begin to mist, but after a series of blinks, all traces of tears were gone.

“She’d know if it was the end to leave something for me. Some clue.” Sherlocked tapped the book. “This is it. It’s bees. Bees are the answer.”

“Bees?” John asked. “What about bees?”

Sherlock paused for a moment. Before answering honestly, all of the usual bravado stripped from his voice.

“I don’t know,” he said quietly.

Sherlock didn’t let John accompany him upstairs. And John didn’t hear from his friend again.

And when Molly’s funeral came, the detective didn’t attend.

And when John called Mycroft, he couldn’t get a straight answer.

And when Lestrade drove by, he couldn’t see anything.

And when Mrs Hudson listened out, there was only silence.

And so John had been sent in.

And there was nothing that could have prepared him for what he found.

Baker Street was empty. Sherlock was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning – a little gruesome in parts. Considering it's Sherlock's POV of what has happened to Molly, that's only to be expected, right?

Blood. So much blood.

When he would replay those moments over and over in his mind palace in the days that followed, he would always remember the blood. Great pools of it, covering the floor around the fallen and frail body of Molly Hooper.

Blood blooming like unearthly flowers through the fabric of her blouse.

Blood coating his hands from where he picked her up, checked her pulse, and tried to administer CPR – to no avail.

She was dead long before he arrived. Her body too cold, her skin too pale.

There was too much blood. Not enough left for her to survive. The scientist in him recited the statistics about hypovolemic shock. When the body loses approximately one-third of blood volume, the stress on the heart, as well as other vital organs, causes the body to shut down. Brain function is depleted from lack of oxygen. And soon the entire system follows suit.

Sherlock looked frantically from Molly to the floor covered in her blood and back to Molly.

She didn’t have a chance.

In that moment, he hated that his first instinct was to call his brother, but there was no one else he knew with the power to mobilise enough manpower to track down whoever who had done this to Molly and rain down the hellfire of God’s own wrath.

One phonecall. Three words. “It’s Molly Hooper--”

Three words were all he could manage before his hand trembled too much to keep the phone to his ear. It fell, spinning into the pool of blood were it landed and shattered.

 

* * *

  
It wasn’t the first time three words had changed everything between the detective and his pathologist. The first, of course, had been in front of witnesses – Eurus setting a trap for her brother to fall headlong into, and John and Mycroft there to see every torturous moment. Three words wrung out of the deepest recesses of his heart, sprung out to freedom after being locked away for so long.

Of course Eurus would have known. She could see everything, even what Sherlock wouldn’t let himself see – that every single moment of his relationship with Molly Hooper was one that he had clung to, stored away in a place so deep within his mind palace that it took three attempts at saying the words to set his feelings free.

And when he heard her say it back, with the quiet resignation that showed she believed he would never feel the same way, the moment of relief that Molly was safe was soon overtaken with the taunting sight of her coffin – a coffin with a plaque written not from Molly to Sherlock – but from he to her.

Just one week later, three different words had changed everything again. Three simple words – “What is this?”

Inconsequential enough, but when said in the dim light of morning after another night where wordlessly he had come to her, kissed her, and claimed her as his own, they were words containing ocean-depths of meaning.

Those three words, said as their breaths returned to normal while their skin still gleamed with the sweat of their desperate, silent union.

Three words that broke the spell, that made all of the previous nights spent together finally crash head-on with reality.

It was only a matter of time.

“Sherlock, what is this?”

“Well, unless I’m mistaken, this is your bed in your bedroom in your flat where you and I have just engaged in the latest in a growing number of rather satisfactory sexual encounters.”

He knew exactly what she was asking, but hoped that humour might buy him some time. From the look on her face he could tell is was a grave miscalculation.

“Well, yes, but, what I mean is-“ She stopped herself. He could see in the mild misting around her eyes that she was afraid to continue, not willing to risk his rejection.

“You mean, what. is. this?” Sherlock gestured towards her still-naked body as she lay on her side, the duvet covering her, the only armour nearby.

“Yes,” she nodded.

“Well-“ he began, and paused for a moment, unable to find the right words.

How could he tell her that her home felt truly like home? And the only restful sleep he could have was in her arms?

How could he explain that when all was lost, when she was lost, he realised he was nothing.

He arrived on her doorstep at 5am on the morning after Sherrinford, the early morning light breaking through the black night he'd left behind with all its memories and ghosts.

 

He hadn’t meant to kiss her, and when he did, he didn’t mean it to be anything other than the kind of glancing chaste kisses on the cheek he had offered her in the past.

But when the hurt and the heartbreak in her eyes mirrored his own, he knew there was only one thing left to do.

He kissed her like the world was ending – because for Sherlock, it had.

It continued that way for a few weeks, Sherlock arriving at her door, offering with his body the proof of words once said in desperation, words he hadn't yet brought himself to say again.

Such was the power of Eurus's plan to taint the love he had only just discovered he'd been carrying for so long.

But when Molly asked, "What is this?" Sherlock felt those words forming again, and was about to say them when his phone rang.

 “Saved by the bell,” Molly said wryly.

“To be continued,” he said, kissing her softly before answering the phone.

It was a case – a locked-room mystery, the death of two scientists at the Royal Institute for Botanical Research. Both died with no marks on their bodies and no evidence of anyone else entering the lab.

Fascinating enough to keep Sherlock focused for almost a week.

And so it happened that Sherlock Holmes, the man who had once claimed that emotions were the grit in the sensitive instrument of his mind, and that all emotions, especially love, was abhorrent to him, had decided to tell Molly Hooper of his feelings for her on valentine’s day, of all days. If it was anyone but him it would have been a cliché fitting for the ending of the romantic movies that filled Molly’s DVD cabinet, but to be honest, he hadn’t realised what the day was.

The bunch of roses was a last minute addition. Bought, on a whim, from a pop-up florist around the corner from Molly’s flat.

Roses that now lay forgotten at the door, trampled on by Mycroft and his men as they descended on the scene.

Sherlock didn’t move as they took Molly’s body away. Didn’t react when his brother’s face came into his field of vision. Didn’t register the words “I have informed Lestrade, and John Watson, they are on their way.”

The only thing he saw was the book, once in her hands, now fallen to the floor.

A book which he couldn’t imagine Molly ever reading – but one he knew he had an identical copy of back at Baker Street-

Beekeeping for Beginners.

She was trying to tell him something - but what?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short one - sorry about that. It just seemed to want to end at this point rather than run on to the next section. Hopefully that means I'll have another chapter for you soon. Thanks for all the encouraging comments - you guys are the best!

Molly Hooper died on Valentine’s day. Her body was discovered by the world’s only consulting detective who, shaken to the core to find the woman he had only just decided to spend the rest of his life with, called the one person he (begrudgingly) trusted almost as much as the woman whose lifeless body would forever haunt his dreams.

But what Sherlock Holmes didn’t know was that while Molly Hooper had died that day in her flat, all was not as it had seemed.

“Tell me again why there’s no other way,” Molly demanded Mycroft that morning as they met in his basement office under the Diogenes club to make the final preparations.

“We know things, Miss Hooper,” Mycroft glanced at his assistant – who Molly recalled was named Anthea- with a knowing look, “and what we know we don’t like.”

“He’s been planning this for years,” Anthea chimed in.

“Who? You have?” Molly glared at the elder Holmes in shock.

“Not me. Moriarty.”

The name still had the power to send a shiver up Molly’s spine. “B-but he’s gone, he’s dead.”

“Quite,” Mycroft, having seen the same body as Molly had that day on Bart’s roof, was, like the pathologist, certain that the criminal mastermind had lost his – the evidence of which stained the concrete for months.

“But he made a promise,” Mycroft continued, “a promise to my brother.”

“What kind of promise?”

Molly caught a fraught look exchanged between Mycroft and Anthea.

“It’s not for me to say. But recent events have made us aware that said promise has put your life in jeopardy.”

There was something about the way Mycroft said the phrase “recent events” that caused the bile to rise in her throat. She knew Mycroft was there at Sherrinford, that he had caught the whole display – her heart ripped out, and Sherlock’s.

But there was more to it than that, a cocked eyebrow that told her everything she needed to know – Mycroft knew about Sherlock’s visits, their new “relationship” – although Molly herself wasn’t comfortable calling it that.

“I know what you heard that day Mycroft,” Molly paused, taking a deep breath to counter the wavering in her voice, “but Sherlock doesn’t love me, at least not like that.”

“Doesn’t he?”

There wasn’t time for Molly to respond. In rushed the various technicians who were to brief Molly on the technology they would use to keep her heart beating at the lowest possible rate while still preserving her life – a mixture of synthesised chemicals with names even she couldn’t pronounce, and a small, subcutaneous implant that would work like a wifi pacemaker. Her life would be in the hands of someone using an iphone.

“It’s better than the alternative,” Anthea warned.

“Which is?”

“We let them actually kill you.”

The plan was to infiltrate the hit squad who had been sent to kill Molly that afternoon. Mycroft’s men had been trained for every eventuality – there would be no doubt that the men in her house would be working for the good guys – that is, if Mycroft could be considered that.

And so it was that Molly did die that afternoon, at least for a moment.

But in the back of a black SUV, surrounded by a team of MI6 operatives, Molly was reborn, resurrected, made new.

The only problem was, like Sherlock Holmes did years earlier, it was now Molly’s turn to stay dead while being fully alive.

And that’s where Mycroft’s second phase of the plan began.

It was all going to be about the bees.


End file.
